11.09.2010

coming through... it's-a mario & luigi!

Halloween is over and done with and no doubt everyone is now looking forward to Thanksgiving, but I wanted to come in and finally do my post-Halloween blog about the boys costumes. To have spent so little money and not very much time on them, we were all so proud of how they turned out so I'm also sharing some tidbits for anyone who may be interested in putting together their own Mario and/or Luigi costumes for next Halloween, costume play, a themed birthday party, or whatever.

Once the boys had decided they wanted to dress up as Mario and Luigi, the first thing we did was to make a trip to Goodwill. Within a minute (!!!) of walking in the door I'd found the first pair of overalls. A few more minutes of browsing through the racks I had found another pair. I took my harder to fit child to the dressing room to try them on, and there was yet another pair of overalls hanging up right there in the room that we ended up buying. Since I have never, ever, in my life had so much luck finding what I need at Goodwill, I knew it must be fate. Haha.

We were all excited about our great Goodwill finds! The kids know me and my frugal ways and kept going on about how awesome it was to spend less than $10 for two pairs of overalls. Jace even asked if he could wear his everyday after Halloween. However, my excitement over the fab find did not last long. I was on a mission and was soon feeling a little weary about putting together the rest of the costumes. We'd found a very crucial part on the cheap, but in my opinion, the most important part of the whole look ... is the hat! No problem finding Mario and Luigi hats online in costume shops and on ebay, but at about $15-$25 a pop, there was no way I wanted to pay that much for something they would only wear out of the house two or three times at the most.

So, I started looking around for ideas on how to make the hats myself, and came across a few ideas involving a baseball cap but still wasn't thrilled with the look. Not authentic enough, in my opinion. After more extensive searching (looking for anything for over 10 minutes feels extensive to me, so this may be an exaggeration), I finally came across this tutorial, How to Make Mario or Luigi Hats by Helen, on the Groovy Kids Stuff Blog. This was the perfect starting point! I was lucky in that the next week, fleece was 30% off at Hobby Lobby so I ended up paying around $4.50 for 2 yards of the most basic cheap fleece I could find, which was more than enough (what am I going to do with all this extra fleece??? Christmas crafts, anyone?).

I read through many of the comments left on the How to Make Mario or Luigi Hats blog post and suited the instructions to what I was visualizing... for the bill I traced the bill of a baseball cap onto a thin piece of cardboard (I used a cereal box) and used that as a template to cut out the felt. Then, after trimming it down a bit, inserted it into the bill for stability before sewing the pieces up. Also, instead of using sticky foam for the circle, I used sticky-backed felt for the white circle as well as the letters. Since I have very little skill in hand drawing anything, I used this Mario & Luigi font by the Super Mario Bros Club as a tracing guide for the "M" and "L" on the hats. I also used sticky-backed felt for the yellow buttons on their overalls.

And finally.... the moustaches. They were a labor of love! Who doesn't love a sweet moustache? On a 7 and 8 year old? Too funny. Once again, because I don't possess the ability to draw or cut anything freehand, I first created the moustaches in Photoshop, printed on brown cardstock, applied a thick layer of glue stick on the backside, layered a sheet of brown felt on top, allowed to dry, and then cut out. You could also use sticky-backed felt, but Hobby Lobby was out of stock. Fake fur may be an interesting look to try (not for my sensitive kids though!) for the most realism, aside from actual fake moustaches. I tried attaching the moustaches with double sided tape, but it lasted about as long as it took me to take the above pictures. Eventually I settled on threading fishing line through the moustaches and making loops to go around their ears, in addition to the double sided tape, which worked pretty well.

If anyone can use them, below are the moustache templates. Please keep in mind that these were very rough sketches that I created in Photoshop using the pen tool. The edges are obviously a little "rough" and are simply intended to be used as a guide in helping you create your own fake moustaches. They are NOT up to the standard set for digital scrapbooking use.

Click the image to download.
(link updated Nov. 10, 2010 it should work fine now. thanks!)

The boys' looks were completed with cheap knit gloves and long sleeved red/green t-shirts, which I did end up purchasing new, but because red and kelly green are two of their "school colors" they will be able to wear them to school, under their polos and button-up shirts.

Dressing up as Mario and Luigi was so much fun for them. They got a lot of attention and compliments, which they loved of course!

I've even done a couple of layout for them already. I saw these cool KGU Famous Frames in Berna's shop and knew they'd be a perfect match for my famous pair! For a full credit list, just click on the layouts to see them in my SBG gallery.

And with that, I am officially done with Halloween until 2011! Thanks for reading :)